Of Ancient Power
by To Glory
Summary: Jack is a powerhouse with the ability to overthrow a brutal overlord. Kim is the only girl he's ever truly loved. But when Jack erases the past to save both him and Kim, a group of rebels call upon him to fight a war he's fled from. Now, he must unlock his true potential to win a failed war - and along the way, avoid destroying all he'd been trying to preserve. Read and review!


**Hellooo guys! It's me again. If you have read my other story, my apologies for the sucky post speed. I've been working on life and this story. So yeah, sorry 'bout that. Will post soon if life will stop bugging me with stupid insignificant things.**

**But anyway, no more of my personal chatter. Here's the new story for you all! Warning, this chapter had to cover a lot of background story, so it may be ambiguous and kinda hard to understand. Any questions, just PM me about it, or if you're a guest viewing it, just post a review and I'll post a review in reply to it. Despite all my school stufficles (that's not a word, by the way) going on, I take the time to read all my reviews and follows and favorites, etc. etc. etc. Like all other writers! So I'm not that unique. So anyway, I've talked enough. Here's the chapter. Read and review, constructive criticism is welcome since it sucks. I wrote it at three in the morning on most occasions…**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Kickin' It. All rights go to Disney Channel and other respected owner(s). **

Jack Brewer was alone.

He was alone in the dark room, with only ironic solitude to keep him company, alone in his own world. No responsive person, thing, or even being to console him in his sadness. Sitting on the dark, shadowed steps in a dim and abandoned room, he was completely secluded from the world. And with his solitude came pain. Pain that he had brought upon himself and others.

Memories flashed through his head, without mercy or compromise. They blanketed the darkness in front of him in miniscule patches of light, stacking up on each other. His subconscious played the horrible scene over and over again before him, projected onto a glowing screen before him. His guilty conscience paired with the unrestrained power he possessed conjured up an illusion based on a true memory to keep the events fresh in his mind.

He turned away, electing the darkness over the light. He didn't want to see it. He didn't want to see what he had done, the mistakes he knew he had made. As if the mere thought of it wasn't enough to tear him apart internally with guilt, he didn't need a visual representation to remind himself of the moment he had failed everyone.

Yet unhealthy curiosity opposed his common sense, forcing his eyes back to the golden light before him that was his memory. He stared into the light's depths solemnly, watching the events replay before his very eyes.

He saw a throne, large, tall, and ominous, but the throne was empty. Just as Jack's joy had drained from him, the throne stood completely uninhabited. Not even a single tendril of darkness even daring to touch it, as if kept at bay by either respect or fear. At the right hand of the throne stood a hooded figure whose long robes gently touched the ground. Jack could not see through the veil of shadow that concealed the figure's features, but Jack knew who he was. Just solely the presence of the figure emanated pure power and respect. He was an Ancient, one of the most supernaturally powerful beings in the known universe.

The Ancient said nothing. No words were necessary. The only sights needed to complete this terrible view were the many glass windows that lined the long throne room's walls at set intervals, creating a leading-line path to the massive, elegantly engraved stone door that faced the throne, flanked by two masked men in red robes holding wickedly sharp spears. Behind the Ancient, dwarfing the throne in its massive size, was a gaping emptiness in the wall, a glassless window, revealing that outside lay a demonic landscape of jagged mountains and erupting volcanoes. Where the floor ended marked the beginning of a few-thousand-foot drop to the ground below. But that was not necessarily the worst sight.

The worst sight was the sight of four people about to be dropped off the edge, suspended in midair by four masked executioners.

Jack, reverting to the present, dissipated the visual memory with a single, almost contemptuous wave of his hand. The glowing particles quickly scattered under his command, but his will lacked conviction, the conviction that was necessary to securely enforce his order. Taking advantage of Jack's distracted attitude, the particles fused together again, forming the same memory with him effectively powerless to stop it.

Jack's eyes, propelled by a mixture of curiosity and boredom, traveled back to the image. He saw the exact same memory. The same room, with the same landscape view, the same people being suspended over the drop by four masked men. But there were two new people in the scene. He saw himself, and a certain blonde girl at his side. They were both chained and shackled, forced to their knees in front of the Ancient in a gesture of humiliating submission.

A voice resounded throughout the cavernous chamber, bouncing menacingly off the walls before escaping out the gaping hole in the back. The origin of the powerful voice was not discernible by hearing alone, but Jack knew more than the information that his senses had supplied him. The Ancient was speaking.

"Take a good long look," the Ancient said. "See what you've done, the process you've started that cannot be reversed." The Ancient's voice had a certain satirical tone to it, seeming to mock Jack while maintaining a sense of profound and genuine sadness, like he – or was it a she? – didn't want for it to have to happen. The Ancient made it sound like it could have been prevented.

Jack, watching the scene, clenched his fists at his side. _It couldn't have been prevented. _He repeated that over and over to his mind, but the more he said it, the more it sounded to him like he was trying to defend a case that had already been declared guilty. He sounded like he was lying to himself, trying to convince and trick himself that a lie was true.

Deep down inside, he knew for a fact that it could have been.

Meanwhile, back in the glowing memory before him, the Ancient had begun to speak again. The voice reverberated throughout the hall, the pure power it carried causing the memory itself to vibrate and shake under the burden of its leftover strength.

"Watch," the Ancient commanded. "Watch, and never forget."

The Ancient turned his back on Jack, angling his body to face the four masked executioners, who waited motionless for the signal to let loose the prisoners and begin their plummet several thousand feet straight down to the ground. The Jack he saw in the memory struggled, trying in vain to break free of the chains that bound him, that prevented him from rescuing the ones who needed a savior.

The Ancient paid Jack no mind. Its full attention was focused on the four death-condemned people that were before him. He knew that the four were the key to breaking Jack's spirit. He knew that upon their death, they would become martyrs that would be forever imprinted in Jack's memory. Their deaths would be like a fiery brand, reminding Jack that whatever he did in defiance of the Ancient's power would lead inevitably to disaster.

Keeping that on his mind, the Ancient gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod to the executioners, signaling them to end their lives.

As Jack stared deep into the depths of the memory, time seemed to slow in every perspective. He saw the four prisoners, clutching for open air as they fell to their deaths. He saw the Ancient turn away from the executioners slowly, as if it were nothing. As if their deaths were insignificant. Then Jack saw himself act.

The Jack that he once was shattered the chains that bound him with a purely mental attack, demonstrating the power that he held – and still did – in the next few seconds of chaos that ensued. The force of his own power rendered a grim feeling of self-pride in Jack as he watched the anarchy take root in the room.

But he knew that he couldn't be proud of himself as he watched the scene unfold, for he knew all that was to happen. He knew the ending of this story. He knew every flaw, every mistake he was and will be.

For a brief moment, he could actually take proud credit for his power. He saw the four executioners ejected from the throne room by his telekinetic push attack, spinning aimlessly in midair to meet the same fate as the ones that they had condemned. He saw every glass window in the hall room shatter. He saw the Ancient, caught by surprise, take a step back.

The red guards behind him staggered back visibly, and he saw one of them hoist a deadly spear and level it, aimed directly at Jack's back. Watching it now, looking into his thoughts, it seemed to the average observer like an insignificant move, for he was nearly ten yards away from him, but as the scene continued, the guard drew his arm back for a powerful throw. The guard hurled the spear with deadly accuracy at Jack, who didn't even turn around.

But Jack's reflexive defense far outmatched the abruptness of man's attack – instincts that would lead, as Jack now knew, to certain disaster. A telekinetic shield dreamt up by Jack's powers materialized in the path of the spear, causing it to ricochet off the created defense. It shot like an arrow from a bow, missing Jack by at least ninety degrees. It soared far clear of any points in Jack's body, heading apparently nowhere, seeming a discarded and failed weapon...

…and impaled itself right in the side of the other blonde captive.

Just the sight of the events, the reawakening of the senses he had felt in that moment, drove Jack to anger. Upon a second command, the particles dispersed, but this time they remained scattered. The conviction Jack had lacked before was now given to him by his anger at the sight of his own mistakes – mistakes that he made, and that he could have prevented.

He rested his forehead in his palms, fighting back an overly unnecessarily emotional reaction. If only he hadn't blocked it. If only he had taken the spear instead of her. Why her? Why not him? The multitude of unanswered questions relentlessly pounded his mind.

He recalled how he had tried everything in his power to save the other blonde captive from death. He remembered how he had seized her immediately and teleported, taken her to the room they were now in, and was now a mere bystander while death decided to take her or not. He'd done all he could.

But not everything…

Forcing himself to rise, he walked to the center of the dimly lit room he was in. Reaching into his pocket, he drew out a picture, faded yet still recognizable, even in the failing light. A picture that was linked to that fateful day.

On it were four people. The four who were killed – by his own actions, his own decisions.

He knew what he had to do. He knew the one thing he hadn't done, the one measure he hadn't gone to, to save the girl. He knew the limit he had to breach in order to save her life and future others. To protect both of them from the same fate that their four friends met, he had to destroy the past. In any way possible.

Anger – directed solely at himself – clouded his thinking. Crumpling up the photograph, he threw it in no particular direction – as long as it was away from him. Mindlessly willing for fire to appear, he conjured up a small orb of blue flickering flames in his hand using his powers and shot it from his hand like a rocket to engulf the crumpled picture, completely and utterly incinerating it to a pile of ashes in mere seconds.

His power. The power he had witnessed both firsthand and secondhand. _My power, _he told himself. How ironic, yet humiliatingly predictable and simple – for it to be simultaneously a blessing and a curse.

He looked to his right, the sight that met his eyes steeling his determination and resolving his will to do what he knew he must. He looked right, to see the blonde girl laying there on the floor, bandages concealing the wound on her side. The girl he'd tried and failed to protect.

The only girl he'd ever truly loved.

He knelt next to her, running a hand over her form, yet keeping it suspended above her by at least a foot, afraid to touch her in fear of damaging her already-sensitive body. She was pale and lifeless, no evidence to suggest that she still lived. While also giving him courage, the sight evoked an unparalleled sadness in him. Mentally, he spoke to her, his words referring to his deeds and also to what he was about to do – to both him and to her. However physically and mentally painful, it was for the best. He spoke only to her, even though he knew she could not hear him.

_I'm so sorry._

He heard a door open and close from behind him, and he immediately deduced he hadn't been alone. The thought that he might be an enemy sent to murder him vaguely cross his mind, but he wasn't afraid of anyone the Ancient might send after him. He knew what the Ancient knew – that Jack had lost everything, and was no longer a threat.

He looked behind him, and behind him stood a teenage boy, who couldn't have been more than fifteen. His black hair lightly shaded his eyes, and he was dressed in dull, scorched metal armor. His dark skin contrasted his eyes – his eyes were ice blue, with no hints of mercy or fear in them.

And in his hand he held a spear.

**So there's the first chapter for you guys. Will not make promises I can't keep up with on posting speed (as you saw in my delay in my other story) but I have been working on a multitude of ideas for new and improving my old stories. I have so much planned for Ultimatum and so much planned for this story! Oh and I am working on a more well-developed method of letting you guys know what I'm working on, so yeah. Also, if you guys are working on a story and need any help (which I doubt, since I believe all of you are fantastic writers and are able to go lone wolf on it), I could co-write it with you. But yeah, that's just an idea if you're stuck so I can try to help you out with ideas and writing. But until then, keep reading/writing my friends. **

**-To Glory**


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